Stages
by arualms
Summary: Post The Graduates. Everyone tries to deal.


disclaimer: Nope, still not mine. Damn!

**Stages **

1.

Julie flat out refuses to listen to the doctors, or the policemen, or Neil. She has no idea why they are saying what they are, but she knows that it's not true. So she stands by, watching people around her talk, seeing more arrive and leave, observing Neil taking charge, safe in the knowledge that this isn't real.

She may not be sure what this is, but there is no doubt that this isn't reality.

Reality is swallowing her pride and ignore the wounds that somehow still haven't closed, and telling Jimmy she is ok with Marissa spending a year on a boat wit him, because she isn't blind and she sees that Marissa is still lost and this might be good for her.

Reality is Marissa graduating, and apologizing to her for past sins, knowing that she has to do it before her baby girl takes of and they grow even further apart.

Reality is saying good buy and Cooper family hugs and knowing that a year without her is going to be hell, and being grateful for Kaitlin's presence despite knowing she will cause trouble.

Reality is knowing that Marissa will be gone for a while, and then gone again when she goes to college, and never the same again when she turns into an adult, but still always there, always her baby, even when one day she has babies of her own, baby's that Julie will teach to call her by her first name because grandma would make her sound old.

None of this is reality, and only that knowledge keeps Julie from falling apart.

2.

Summer isn't planning on letting go of her anger any time soon. She can hear it in her mind, her father admonishing her that this isn't a healthy way of dealing with things, that she needs to work through her grief, but her father doesn't know anything and for once, she doesn't care what he thinks.

She knows anger, is used to it and she will cling to it as long as she fucking wants to. It is hot and burning and the overwhelming power of it keeps her from freezing in the reality of a world in which her best friend is dead.

It isn't difficult to find things to be angry about.

She is mad at her dad, because he keeps looking at her like that and asking her to talk to him and how dare he make her feel like she is letting him down by not getting through this in a way he approves off? Knowing that she might be imagining things doesn't change anything, because honestly right now everything he says and does is wrong. He can't say or do the right thing, but she doesn't want to be alone either, and she finds that she hates him for not being able to fix things the way her daddy is supposed to.

She is furious with Cohen, because if it wasn't for him and his stupid lies and cons, maybe she wouldn't have spent her last weeks with Marissa agonizing about her boyfriend, and she isn't sure if she can forgive him for taking that away from her. It's a good thing, too, being so angry that she can't even look at him, because being with Cohen always makes her think about the future, one way or another, and a future without Marissa is not something she is willing to contemplate, not now and maybe not ever.

She thinks that if she ran into him, she could kill Jimmy, because honestly who abandons his family the way that jerk did and then suddenly decides it is time for a little father-daughter bonding? On a freaking boat?

She can't even look at Kaitlin, because she looks so much like Marissa. It's really not fair to be angry with someone for simply existing, but she doesn't give a damn about fair. Kaitlin is here and Marissa isn't, and how is she supposed to deal with mini-Coop when Coop is no longer there and Kaitlin is the only Coop left?

She hates Volchok more than she ever knew it was possible to hate someone, spends hours on end coming up with new ways she could torture him, make him pay if only she could get her hands on the bastard. He took her best friend away from her, no punishment meted out by some panel of jurors will be adequate and the knowledge makes her want to vomit.

The worst thing, though, the one though she cannot admit to anyone out loud, is that she is angry with Marissa. She knows not to speak ill of the deceased, a rule that surely applies to thinking as well, but she can't help it. Marissa hooked up with that slime ball, knowing the danger and walking right into the fire with her eyes wide open and Summer wants to scream at her, scream that she had no right to do, was not allowed to put herself at risk like that when Summer needed her, still needs her, thinks she will always need her. She doesn't believe she will ever be able to forgive Marissa for leaving her.

It hurts, being mad at Marissa when she isn't there to be yelled at, hurts in way that makes her want to concentrate on anyone, everyone else, causes her to spend long, endless hours trying to hate Ryan for not being able to save her, but that doesn't work because she saw him right afterwards and she knows that if there had been any way, he would have done it. Trying to get mad at Ryan therefore always turns into being angry at the whole world, and the world deserves to be hated, so she sticks to that.

3.

Seth has no idea what to do. He knows he has to do something, but everything he comes up with just scream wrong, and he really doesn't want to make things any worse (though he's not sure if that is even possible).

He spends hours wracking his brain, trying to come up with something, anything, please there has to be a way to help. He knows that Ryan needs him, knows that Summer needs him, but other than magically bringing Marissa back to life, he doesn't think there is anything that could help.

But this isn't Buffy, and even though he would totally be willing to go all dark Seth if it meant bringing her back and giving her back to Ryan and Summer, he knows he can't and he hates it.

He doesn't allow himself to dwell on thoughts of the accident, on the realisation that it could have been Ryan, on the knowledge that Marissa died while he was having sex with Summer in a big card board box. Thinking about those things isn't going to help anyone, and neither is dwelling on the fact that he knew Marissa (at least in an abstract, she's my neighbour way) since first grade, and that now she is just gone.

What he needs to do, Seth knows, is come up with a way to help Ryan and Summer, because he can not, will no let them get lost in this.

But no matter how hard tries to come up with something; there is nothing he can do, nothing that will really help (because "just be there for them" might sound nice, but really doesn't change anything), and he ends up wishing for things to get better anyway.

He might not be able to do anything, but he finds himself promising to any- and everyone who might that he would do whatever it takes.

No more lies, if in exchange Summer never gets hurt again, not by him and not by anyone else.

No more taking things and people for granted, if it means that he will not loose anyone he loves, and they won't loose anyone either.

No more selfishness, if that allows him to actually be who Ryan needs him to be and for once actually make things just a little bit better for his best friend.

He would do anything, if it meant that the two people that he loves so much in such different ways, the people he has realized he can't live without, make it through this in one piece.

Seth would do anything, and he wishes that could help.

4.

After the funeral, Kaitlin stops leaving the house. It's not as if she likes being here, in a room that used to be Marissa's, a room that somehow manages to still smell like her sister despite the air refresher she keeps spraying everywhere.

So no, Kaitlin doesn't stay in her room because she wants to be there, it's just that there is no point in going anywhere else. She doesn't have any friends here, not anymore/ not yet, and somehow she doesn't think going down to the pier will help her take the edge off of this.

This is her mother being constantly half gone, drugged out of her mind.

This is Neil looking at her mother with eyes that are half pity and half please, not again.

This is Summer not being able to look at her and when she does look, it makes Kaitlin feel as if she has absolutely no right to even be here.

This is dad calling her on the phone, telling her that he can't make it for the funeral, promising to call again soon but never doing it.

This is Ryan, coming to check up on her, telling her knows what it's like to loose an older sibling, knows it even if it was not the same, offering to be there for her and why, why does he have to be nice to her and actually care and tell her that just because they didn't get along, doesn't mean she isn't allowed to mourn?

This is lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to remember the bad times, hoping that will make it hurt a little less, and yet somehow not being able to come up with anything that would make things a little less horrible.

This is Marissa being dead.

This is more than Kaiting thinks she will ever be able to handle, and so she stays in her room and doesn't even waste energy trying.

5.

Sandy has learned, over the course of the last eighteen years, that as much as he wants to, he can't protect his son from everything. He knows this, knows that it applies to both the boys he considers his, and knows that no matter what he does, he will never be able to change this fact.

The knowledge doesn't keep him from wishing it were different, and it isn't even enough to keep him from feeling guilty about it being true. It certainly doesn't help against the guilt of not even having tried.

What it does is to allow him to push all those feelings aside for now and focus on what he can do.

He can drive Kirsten and Seth over to Neil's house when they feel like they need to take care of Summer and Julie.

He can come pick them up again later and together; they can try to be there for Ryan the best way they can.

He can make sure that Ryan has ice in the fridge and antiseptics in the bathroom to take care of his bleeding knuckles.

He can talk the boy into seeing a therapist (if not for yourself, then for the family, Ryan), even though playing the guilt-card makes him feel guilty in return.

He and Kirsten can take turns, staying up at night, watching the pool house and making sure Ryan doesn't do anything stupid.

He can make sure that he tells Kirsten and Seth and Ryan that he loves them, at least once a day, and he can be grateful that he is allowed to be there for his family through this.

6.

Ryan thinks that whoever came up with the nonsense of the five stages of grief was an idiot. Or actually, the people who turned the concept into rules of how to deal, those were the idiots. Because if all it takes is going through the five stages, he should be fine.

He did the whole denial thing before Marissa was even actually dead, telling her that it was going to be ok when rationally, they both knew it wasn't.

Anger and bargaining came pretty much at the same time, begging for the doctors to somehow still be able to do something (promising anything if they can) and hating them for the fact that they couldn't.

Depression is staring at the ceiling and making a mental list of all the things he could have done differently, all the other ways this year could have played out without him being the reason for his ex-girlfriends death.

Acceptance is throwing a shovel of dirt onto a dark wooden casket and knowing that she is inside that box.

So really, if all it takes is to go through all five phases, then he ought to be fine.

But he isn't, because it's far from over and he doesn't believe it will ever really be.

He wakes up in the morning and for a split second thinks that maybe it was just a nightmare, and please, please let that be true.

His knuckles are bruised and bloody every night, despite Sandy's plea to use bandages.

He spends his days trying to be good, trying to be there for Summer and Kaitlin, trying to do everything right now, as if somehow it will make a difference, if only he can be good enough.

He can't look at himself in the mirror, because this is his fault and he doesn't think he can live with himself anymore.

He tells himself again and again that Marissa is dead and it won't change anything if he goes chasing after Volchok.

So if he goes through them again and again, obviously these five stages aren't really worth a whole lot.

Ryan wishes they were, because maybe then there would be hope for it to get better someday.

This way, the only thing that keeps him going is not knowing what else to do.

**_Feedback makes me happy. You want to make me happy, right? It could be your good deed for the day!_**


End file.
